Nov. 3 (Bloomberg) -- The high technology Internet industry
and trial lawyers are helping President Barack Obama avoid a
potential fundraising liability caused in part by a drop in
support from his biggest 2008 industry backer: Wall Street.

Microsoft Corp. employees rank first among Obama’s business
givers, taking the spot investors at Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
held in the 2008 presidential cycle, according to the Center for
Responsive Politics, a Washington-based research group.

Obama, 50, is exceeding his record fundraising pace of four
years ago, even though he started later this time around. He
reported raising $88 million through Sept. 30, up from $80
million in 2007. That is more than twice the amount of money
raised by the leading Republican presidential fundraiser, former
Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney. Romney reported $33 million
in donations, some of it from Wall Street donors who once backed
Obama.

“The strong totals indicate that he has been able to
replace the defecting Wall Street donors and also indicate that
Democratic discontent is still containable,” said Linda Fowler,
a government professor at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New
Hampshire.

To reach out to high-tech employees, the campaign has
started “Technology for Obama,” an on-line-based organization
that is similar to those used by the campaign to reach out to
such constituencies as women and Latinos.

Membership Costs

Memberships start at $25 and go to $35,800, including a
$30,800 donation to the Democratic National Committee. People
who join the group are given opportunities to share their ideas
on policy matters related to the technology industry.

“This is an industry that embraces people who talk about
what the future is going to be,” said Rusty Rueff, a
Hillsborough, California-based consultant and investor in
technology companies and national co-chairman of the Obama
group. “As we talk about what the president wants to do,
there’s not a lot of, ‘Woe is us.’” Instead, he said, “‘It’s,
‘Great, let’s make things better.’”

Participants are being urged to write more than checks;
they are being asked to help the Obama campaign connect with
voters through social media and other technology.

“We’re in a totally different world on how you connect to
voters today,” said Rueff, who has raised between $100,000 and
$200,000 for the campaign this year. “If you have a half a
billion people on Facebook, that’s a pretty important place to
be.”

Triple Romney’s Donations

Obama has raised $1.2 million from technology company
employees through Sept. 30, more than any other presidential
candidate and three times Romney’s $374,650, according to the
Center for Responsive Politics.

Donations from those workers account for three of Obama’s
top five corporate sources of campaign cash. Microsoft is No. 1
and Google Inc. is No. 3, according to the Center for Responsive
Politics. Chopper Trading LLC, a Chicago-based technology
company, is No. 4. Four years ago, Chopper employees gave a
total of $2,300. As of Sept. 30, they contributed $64,815 to the
re-election effort.

Among donations in the third quarter alone, Oracle Corp.
and Cisco Systems Inc. employees also ranked in the top 10
sources of corporate cash, according to a computer-assisted
analysis of Federal Election Commission data.

Obama has pushed for expanded access to wireless and other
high-speed Internet connections, including inserting in the 2009
stimulus legislation $7 billion for broadband construction. He
also signed into law a new patent system, a top priority for the
fast-changing technology world, and has set up a White House
Internet policy task force.

Attorneys’ Donations

Beyond the technology community, lawyers are also stepping
up their giving to the president.

As of Sept. 30, attorneys donated $4 million to Obama, more
than to any other candidate and more than double the $1.7
million they have given to Romney. The Center for Responsive
Politics identified 77 Obama bundlers -- donors who tap their
friends and family to make additional campaign contributions --
who are lawyers more than any other profession.

During the 2008 Democratic primary, many trial lawyers at
this point were backing one of their own, former North Carolina
Senator John Edwards, now facing a January trial on federal
criminal campaign finance charges for allegedly diverting
political donations to hide an affair.

Preserving Support

“They are interested in preserving the support that the
plaintiffs’ bar had for Barack Obama in the last election,”
said Ron Goldman, a partner in the law firm of Baum, Hedlund,
Aristei & Goldman, PC. “I am concerned that unless he steps up
his communication, while he may have support, it may be more
tepid.”

While Obama doesn’t accept campaign contributions from
registered lobbyists, six of his 20 top sources of donations
were employees of law firms that also advocate for clients on
Capitol Hill and with the administration.

The president’s campaign received $79,475 from employees of
DLA Piper, which was paid $6.2 million through Sept. 30 by such
companies as Comcast Corp. and Raytheon Co.; and $51,200 from
employees of Arnold & Porter LLP, which was paid $2.8 million
through Sept. 30 to lobby on behalf of Altria Group Inc., Toyota
Motor Corp., and others.

The president has support from other corporate corners.
Some donations are coming from business owners who are convinced
Obama’s efforts to improve the economy are on target, said
Daniel Halpern, president of Atlanta-based Jackmont Hospitality
Inc., who raised between $200,000 and $500,000 for the re-election campaign.

Middle-Class Customers

“The majority of American business depends on the middle
class,” said Halpern, whose company owns T.G.I. Friday’s
restaurants. “Today, he’s the only individual running for
president who understands you have to have a strong and robust
middle class.”

Halpern said that initiatives championed by Obama, such as
cutting payroll taxes and accelerating depreciation write-offs,
enabled him to build three new restaurants this year, projects
that created 200 construction jobs and 500 permanent jobs.

“Without the incentives offered by the government, I don’t
think the projects would have happened,” he said.

The president retains some Wall Street support. Robert
Wolf, chairman of UBS Americas, has raised more than $500,000
for Obama, as he did four years ago. Employees of Goldman Sachs
Group and Bank of America Corp. are among his top 20
contributors.

Wall Street Giving

Obama raised $1.6 million through Sept. 30 from securities
and investment industry employees and their families. Romney,
founder of the Boston-based private equity firm Bain Capital
LLC, has more than doubled that, bringing in $3.6 million,
according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Four years ago,
Obama raised $16 million from Wall Street; Romney, who dropped
out of the Republican nomination race on Feb. 7, 2008, collected
$5 million.

Romney, 64, has called for repealing the financial
regulations enacted by Obama in response to the most severe
economic decline since the Great Depression.

Andrea Saul, a Romney campaign spokeswoman, said Wall
Street givers are donating to the Republican’s campaign because
of Obama’s stewardship of the economy and his “failure to
create jobs.”

Obama bundler Kirk Rudy, who has raised more than $500,000
for the re-election effort, said many in the financial industry
support the new regulations and are standing by the president.

“These people are very savvy,” said Rudy, chief executive
of Endeavor Real Estate Group, a commercial real estate
developer in Austin, Texas. “They realize that after the
financial industry collapsed and the bailout, reasonable
regulations were needed to be put in place.”